First Judicial District Court Judge Jason Woodbury has granted the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s motion for a preliminary injunction blocking QCX LLC, doing business as Polymarket US, from operating in Nevada. The ruling marks the third successful enforcement action the NGCB has secured against an unlicensed prediction market platform since launching its campaign in March 2025.
Woodbury’s decision follows the same legal reasoning he applied when issuing a temporary restraining order against Polymarket earlier this year, ahead of Super Bowl event contracts targeting Nevada users. In that earlier ruling, the judge found that “the balance of convincing legal authority weighs against federal preemption in this context,” rejecting Polymarket’s argument that CFTC oversight under the Commodity Exchange Act displaces Nevada’s gaming statutes.
The NGCB’s civil complaint against Polymarket alleges the platform accepted wagers from Nevada residents on sports, political, and entertainment event contracts without holding a licence in any Nevada gaming category. Under state law, regulators classify the offering of sports-event contracts and comparable event contracts as wagering activity subject to mandatory licensing – a process the board notes typically takes at least a year to complete.
Polymarket, like Kalshi and Coinbase before it, has maintained that federal CFTC regulation confers exclusive jurisdiction to operate nationwide, superseding state gaming laws. That argument has failed at each stage in Nevada’s First Judicial District Court. The NGCB framed its enforcement strategy in a June litigation update as ensuring that “derivatives and event contracts offered to Nevada residents comply with both state gaming law and applicable federal commodities law.”
Mike Dreitzer, Gaming Control Board Chairman, said: “We are very pleased with Judge Woodbury’s ruling and will continue to vigorously enforce Nevada law to safeguard gaming in our state.”
The ruling completes Nevada’s sweep of all unlicensed prediction markets known to have been operating in the state. The NGCB previously obtained preliminary injunctions against KalshiEx LLC and Coinbase’s event-based markets, with courts in each instance holding that event contracts on sports and election outcomes constitute unlicensed wagering under Nevada law.
Nevada’s decision to pursue enforcement through state courts rather than federal venues appears to have been tactically significant. Several other states have pending litigation against prediction markets but have faced jurisdictional complications in federal court, where platforms’ preemption arguments carry more procedural weight. The state-court route has allowed Nevada to move quickly from complaints to injunctions without those delays.
The outcome adds pressure to Polymarket’s US re-entry strategy, which has attracted notable investment and political backing. With Nevada now off-limits alongside prior restrictions, the platform’s path to meaningful US market access depends either on obtaining state gaming licences or securing a definitive federal ruling on preemption – neither a quick resolution. Congressional attention to the regulatory boundary between event contracts and sports wagering is also being watched as NGCB’s enforcement record grows.
Polymarket can seek appellate review of Woodbury’s preliminary injunction, though the district court has now rejected the federal preemption theory at both the TRO and preliminary injunction stages, leaving the platform with a narrowing set of procedural options in Nevada.
Petra Vanhoof has spent the better part of a decade following the shifting tides of gambling regulation across Europe and beyond. She came up through the compliance side of the industry before pivoting to writing, which gives her a grounded, no-nonsense perspective on the rules, loopholes, and political maneuvering that shape how operators actually do business. She is particularly drawn to the gap between what regulators say and what the market ends up doing in response. Her coverage tends to focus on licensing developments, responsible gambling frameworks, and the ongoing tension between innovation and oversight. She has a sharp eye for the kind of regulatory language that sounds meaningful but leaves operators plenty of room to maneuver, and she enjoys pulling that apart for readers who want the real picture rather than the press release version. Petra is based in the Netherlands and writes with a continental European perspective that she thinks is often missing from English-language gambling coverage. Outside of work she is an avid cyclist and a reluctant but committed amateur poker player who insists the two hobbies have taught her the same lesson: patience matters more than instinct.